The reason I charge $100 a person (or usually $50 a person if they bring multiple people) to my live events is rather simple. It’s not about drawing money. I want to guarantee attendance. I’ve been to too many events with free registration for attendees, so they would have every reason they could think not to attend and not suffer pecuniary harm.
I will tell you that there is nothing worse than sponsoring an event with food for a maximum of 75 reservations, only for 40 people to show up when it was the event/luncheon. I recently hosted a free webinar on Zoom. There were 125 people signed up and only 40 people showed up. Charge someone a nominal fee, reservations would be down, but guaranteed attendance would be up.
I call it skin in the game. The moment a potential attendee plucks down anything to attend, chances are they will.
